EP #31: 5 Reasons Why Client’s Aren’t Moving Ahead with You

Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald, interior designer, mama, and CEO of a thriving interior design business, built on authentic word-of-mouth referrals. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate architecture job to build my own dream, one that would allow me more time with the people that I love, the ability to serve my clients at the highest level and to make a great living. It wasn't always easy, and I've made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today, and I've learned a thing or two. This podcast is for you - the inspired, creative, ambitious, and let's admit it,  occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives by transforming homes. Join me and my guests each week as we walk through practical ways to build an interior design business you love, and help you transform your client's lives. You can do this. 

Welcome back, my friend to another Designers Oasis podcast episode, I am so happy to be back with you this season. Today we are talking about getting new clients, right. That's the essence of what we always need to be thinking about and working on in our interior design business. But one of the things that has come up quite a bit recently inside the Designer’s Oasis membership is struggling to understand why clients are falling off, why we are getting through maybe the initial couple of steps, but when the rubber meets the road when the proposal and the invoice are sent. That's when you're losing people. And I just want to say that everything we talked about today, these sort of mistakes that we make are all things that I have experienced myself in my own business that I've been able to identify, and, and fix and change. I have also had countless conversations with other interior designers who have experienced some of these same mistakes. So there's some themes and some patterns here. A lot of them are closely related, but they're nuanced. 

So we are going to get into that today. I want to start by painting this picture. Let's say you open your email and you see that a prospective new client and project has booked a discovery call with you. So you open it up, you read the notes, you think to yourself, This sounds like a great project, I look forward to speaking with them. Then you get on the phone. And you go through the steps you listen to what's going on and what they're looking for. And you think I really can help these folks, I know that I've got what it takes. And this sounds like a great project. They seem like nice, folks. So you do the next step, you perhaps prepare for a consultation and in person consultation. So you send them the invoice and your services and pricing guide, whatever your process may look like. And they move ahead with you. You meet them for the consultation. And it's a it's a nice meaty project. It's the kind of projects you have been aiming towards and hoping to get more of, they seem like lovely people, you discuss the project scope and what it is that they're aiming to achieve. You've talked about perhaps their budget, the logistics, their timeline, all of those, all of those things, and you let them in on some of your best ideas. And they really like your ideas and it sounds like alright, let's let's take it to the next step, which would be oftentimes typically for you to provide them with a proposal that outlines the scope of work and your design fees. And it's up to them at that point to go ahead and read through that sign, seal and deliver the project and get going. 

Okay, it's a pretty standard process for onboarding prospective new clients. So you thoughtfully put together your proposal and you send it off, and then all of a sudden crickets, you don't hear back days, perhaps even weeks go by, and you hear nothing. And you start to wonder, Oh my gosh, what did I say? What did I do? My proposal was too expensive. They don't like me, I'm too fat. I'm too skinny. I'm too whatever, like, it's me. And then you start to rationalize, maybe you say, Oh, it wasn't meant to be or, gosh, their non answer is a possible red flag. I'm probably avoiding a terrible person anyway. Right? You may even send an email and get to gently nudge them and just see where were, you know, where are they in their decision? Do you? Would you like to hop on a phone call? Is there anything that they had questions about anything that they'd like to change, revise, you may even do all of those steps with them. You might even get an email that says gives you that they get ubiquitous response. If we've decided to go in another direction, you get that email, but there's no explanation. So it totally leaves you in the lurch about why they haven't decided to work with you. So whenever a prospective clients decides to not work with you, it's important to remember two things. Number one, don't take it personally. But number two, do get curious. getting curious is such a powerful tool in business. So many times, we're just caught up in the day to day and we're, we're deadline driven. And we've got so much going on, that we don't take time to ask why or to get curious on things. And so if you can take some time to get curious and try to get to the bottom of why you might not be able to change their mind, maybe you can, maybe it wasn't a good fit. It depends case by case basis, but at least it can help you to improve for the future. 

So much of why clients decide to not work with you is really comes down to one thing, it is because you have failed to communicate clearly and effectively the value of working with you. So between the mistakes I've made between the conversations I've had with hundreds of designers on this topic, I've been able to distill a few common reasons for why this happens, and where those breakdowns are occurring. And understanding these common reasons will help you to be aware of those pitfalls and try to avoid them. Okay, so today, we're going to distill them into five reasons why you may be getting to dead ends with prospective clients.

So let's start with number one. You haven't cast the vision effectively, meaning you haven't done anything to help them see and envision the end result. Let's use a kitchen remodel for example. Let's say that client comes to you because they want help renovating their outdated kitchen. If all you talk about is budget and layout, and even talk about style, like what what do you envision this looking like or you know what what are you drawn to aesthetically right If you even have those conversations, you still missed a huge opportunity. You must take time to talk about the end results and uncover what is it that they're really after. Right? What's kind of the bigger picture? What's their why for for wanting to do this? And you can do this throughout that sort of those early engagement conversations, whether that's emails, phone calls, or your consultation, thinking about things like, what about the ability to cook for a crowd? Maybe cooking is the way that they share their love with their friends, right? What about being able to cook alongside your children or your partner, those kinds of things. So being able to cast that vision of what's on the other side, is going to be really important. 

The number two reason it kind of falls into this. So number one, you want to make sure to clearly help them envision what's on the other side. Okay, and you have many opportunities to do this, including in your proposal cover letter. Okay, so number two, is that you have failed to use their exact words, it is so important to use your prospective clients exact words when communicating back to them. This act of mirroring helps people to feel seen, and to feel validated and understood, you have the ability to reflect those words in conversations, again, in emails, and even in your proposal letter. So if a client says to you, or uses words like cramped, funky layout, lacks storage, then use those exact words back to them in a natural way, right? Do not paraphrase and say this kitchen is too small, or it has poor flow, or it has limited storage, don't you say? cramped funky layout lacks storage. So what this is going to require of you is that you have a keen ear paying special attention to the words that they use, and what comes up in their their questionnaire in their initial email to you in their conversations with you. And then it's up to you to pay attention to them to document them, write them down, highlight them throughout your discovery process. 

The reality is, clients don't realize when they're talking to you, they're not keeping track of what exact words they're using. So when they hear that reflected back to them, it not only feels and is an act of empathy, but it's also a very simple way to engage more closely with your clients. Okay, the number three reason why you might be losing your clients is that you have overwhelmed or confused them. And this list, I will just say is in no particular order. But this could possibly be the most important, the most common trouble that I see designers facing when they're losing people is they've overwhelmed them, or they've confused them. So when your clients are coming to you or your prospective clients are coming to you, they're already coming to you overwhelmed, they have Pinterest fatigue, they lack time, energy, and expertise to oversee a project of this scale. So you need to be able to communicate with crystal clarity, how you will be their creative guide, helping take them through a thoughtful, tried and true design process. 

Now, this is really important, there is a sweet spot here. Okay, if you are too vague and details, they might not trust you, they might not be able to clearly see how it's all gonna come together. And so you don't want to be too vague. On the other hand, if you over explain, you run the risk of overwhelming them. Further, they may feel like your process is cumbersome, clunky or overly complicated or that there's unnecessary steps. So this is where having a well designed and thoughtful welcome packet and your services and investment guide to really help you because it can you can use those graphics to visually outline your design process and how you work and how you can help solve their problems. So avoid this overwhelming or overcomplicating your design process. So really think about how you're communicating that with your prospective clients. 

Okay, moving on to number four, you are all features and no benefits. So features without benefits are worthless. Here's what I mean by that. If you tell your client that your concept design package includes XY and Z, but you fail to address why X, Y and Z are important building blocks for the next design phase. It can seem like it's superfluous busy work that will just cost them more money. So if your design process includes preliminary drawing set, you have to communicate why that's important. Think about all of your deliverables at each step of your design process. And I want you to outline why each of those are important so that when you're talking to your clients, you can clearly explain why such and such is important and why it's a step that we're not going to skip. And that is going to really help them trust you more, they're going to understand that you have experience in this and that you understand why each of these components of your design process and these deliverables are so important. So make sure that you're always including the benefit of why you deliver something or provide something alongside it whenever you're talking about those. 

Okay, and the final reason why your clients might not be moving forward with you has to do with addressing their internal pain points, it is important to understand the difference between external pain points and internal pain points. If you only address client's external pain points, you aren't getting to the heart and soul of what they really want. Let's go back to this kitchen example for a minute, your client may be telling you that they need a renovation because their current layout is cramped, it's ugly, and it lacks functionality. Those are external pain points. But what's underneath this, and there's always an underneath this is in our internal pain points. So what's going on inside of your clients hearts and minds. That is also the reason why this matters and why they might want to change these things. Let's say that her kids are getting older, and she wants to be able to spend more quality time with them. She wants to be able to cook together or be able to talk to her kids and hear about their day while she prepares dinner or he whatever the case may be, perhaps your client wants to be able to cook for a crowd because that's their love language, they love to be able to have friends over and host and level them through food and conversation. Doing this really fills their bucket. So part of this is going to come down to you having meaningful conversations and asking the right kinds of questions that are going to take those things a step further. So if they tell you that they want something or that they don't like something you may know in your head, or you may have a hunch of why that's important. But it's really important to ask them specifically and get it in their own words. And when you're having these conversations, look for opportunities in emails, in in person conversations and phone calls. And of course, you want to be able to kind of reflect this back in your proposal that you send to your client, your proposal should ideally have a cover letter that goes with it, that outlines, you know, some of these things that they talked about and bringing those back to the forefront of the conversation before you dive into the nitty gritty of what is included with your scope of work. 

So when you do this, your client will read their words back to them not even realizing that they said those same things. And they're gonna feel seen and heard and understand and say, You know what, this lady really gets me, I have to move forward with this person. So I hope you have found today's episode to be useful. And ideally shed some light on some blind spots that you might have. 

One of the tools that we offer inside the designers Oasis membership is the CEO dashboard, which includes a conversion calculator. So the conversion calculator can help you to see where prospective clients might be falling off. And this is a key metric to track in your business. And once you can identify that, then you know where you can improve and what needs work. So right now we're talking about that conversion point of after you've gone through those initial onboarding. And you've provided a proposal, but also in your conversations and in talking to them. So these are remember, everything we talked about today are communication techniques that you can use throughout that onboarding process for them. 

So if getting access to the CEO dashboard, and this conversion calculator sounds like something that you could use in your business, head over to designers oasis.com To learn more about our our membership program. And we'd love to help you get your hands on that. All right, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you have a great, fantastic, wonderful rest of your day and I'll be back next week with another episode. Bye for now. Thank you so much for letting me spend part of this day with you. If you're loving this podcast, please share it with a friend who you think might also love it. Or perhaps you can take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating. And if you have just an extra minute, go ahead and leave a review. This helps me so much and it helps other designers like you to find the podcast. It also adds fuel to my motivation to keep making great episodes just for you. However you choose to help, please know I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you next time.